The Enforcement of Extraterritorial Sanctions: Asset Freezes and International Monetary Law

The chapter assesses whether the enforcement of extraterritorial sanctions through asset freezes is consistent with customary and treaty rules of international monetary law. After defining key concepts and describing the main characteristics of asset freezes, a definition of such measures through the lenses of international monetary law is provided. The research then moves, first, to discuss whether the imposition of asset freezes to enforce extraterritorial sanctions regimes can be deemed an exercise of internal or external monetary sovereignty and, second, whether unilateral (extraterritorial) sanctions can be considered to amount to exchange restrictions legitimately introduced for security reasons for the purposes of the IMF Articles of Agreement. The chapter concludes with a critical assessment of the IMF legal regime on unilateral (extraterritorial) sanctions.